Yesterday Was The New Black Friday

If it seemed as though the Black Friday hysteria wasn’t as outrageous this morning as it has been in years’ past, maybe that’s because so many people had the chance to get a jump on the shopping season yesterday.

KCTV 5 Kansas City posted a story about retailers that were open for at least part of Thanksgiving. Among stores that swung open their doors were Old Navy, Sears, Kmart, many Walmarts and — last night at 10 p.m. — Toys R Us. Since it’s a well-known fact that no retail workers celebrate Thanksgiving, it’s just fine that they had to punch in yesterday to sell us stuff, because they’d certainly rather have been doing that than eating and watching football anyway.

If you shopped on Thanksgiving, what was the scene like, and how did it compare to what you’re seeing today?

Both my parents and my sister work in retail. My parents both worked all day yesterday and had to go in this morning at 3 a.m. Needless to say, I didn’t even get to see them for Thanksgiving. I got to see my sister until 4 p.m., when she had to go to bed because she had to be at work at 10 p.m.

I hate this Black Friday crap, but as long as people continue to demand deals and shop for them, it’s only going to get worse.

I was at Kroger Wednesday night, and saw the sign on their door saying that they’d be open the whole of Thanksgiving Day. My first reaction was “What a bunch of dicks the management must be, and who the hell doesn’t have Thanksgiving grocery shopping done at least the night before?”

I had to go to Kroger yesterday. I hated being there. (I picked up cough syrup, I accidentally spilled the bottle I had and I have a cold) There were so many people there buying every last piece of food that they would need for dinner. It was a bit weird. I am grateful they were open because I needed my cough syrup, but I was amazed at how many people were there and picking up more than a couple of items.

I went to the grocery store on Thanksgiving day because we only have one car, and that Thursday was the only day I could get to the store to get the things I had forgotten. My store was only open until 4 pm though, so the employees did go home.

Once we import our way to poverty as a nation, our corporate overlords won’t give us holidays because they’ll have moved their plants and sweatshops back to the U.S. and we’ll all be working 16 hour days, 7 days a week. Appropriately, the people of our nation will then long for a day of rest where they can look around and be thankful for what they already have.

After Thanksgiving dinner, I drove my family by a Best Buy on the way home. The lot wasn’t full, but cars were streaming in. My kids got a kick out of seeing a line of tents set up by the door.

That used to be me. Now, I do Black Friday online. Part of it is, there’s just not a big-ticket item that we need that makes it worth standing in line this year. Part of it is I’m tired of braving the cold.

I did some shopping online yesterday. I looked at the ads, saw a couple of items that I needed and they were on sale (not a doorbuster) and I decided that I would venture out to the store some time today, but when I saw that the item was available online, and it had to be delivered whether I went to the store or not, I figured I would save myself the trip.

Wednesday evening, I went to Home Depot to purchase a washer & dryer that were on sale (sale was ending that evening), and to my surprise, the black friday sale price had already been entered into the computer, so I saved an additional $200 and avoided the Friday “rush”.

I did stop by Home Depot again this morning to pick up one of their Black Friday deals. Even though the store opened at 5:00am, I walked in at 8:00 and there was no one there except for a few contractors purchasing lumber, and a a wife purchasing a tool set for her husband. The BestBuy next door was PACKED

We drove by Old Navy & went into our local Walmart Supercenter last night close to midnight, and neither one of them were really *that* busy (in fact Old Navy was pretty much deserted. There were only 2 people in line waiting for the doors to open at midnight). Walmart parking lot was about 1/3 full.

Best Buy across the street was a different story, line was already halfway around the building.

Looks like Walmarts strategy of just “staying open” might have paid off in terms of people pushing and shoving and trampling people trying to get in.. I’d have hated to have been waiting in that Best Buy line, that’s for sure. (Not to mention it was 41 degress and RAINING all night).

My boyfriend & I braved Wal Mart even though we haven’t been there in 3 years. We had to split up so one of us could get blu-rays and the other could get games, but on the blu-ray side it wasn’t too terribly crazy. I grabbed my blu-rays, stopped and grabbed a television series and didn’t have to fight anyone. My boyfriend, however, said it was madness at the game end. After he got 5 games, we got in the checkout line and waited until 12, and we were home and playing games at 12:30. It was definitely an experience, but we got some really good deals and saved over $300…that was definitely worth my one hour of waiting.

There are only two real seasons of the year: Christmas and Not Christmas.
Christmas is the most hyped and profitable time of the year.
Thanksgiving is just a marketing instrument to drive Christmas sales.
Christmas is an event designed to motivate people to buy the latest Widget X before a set annual deadline, December 25th.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

If it’s the Mebane one in NC, by any chance, that exit is so bad since the opening that the spouse and I have been taking 64/1 South instead of 85 whenever we head down to Charlotte just to avoid that.

I keep trying to tell my family that. My Brother and his wife were going to camp out for a new TV, leaving their kids with the grandparents. Wait in line for 3+ hours in the cold, running through the store to purchase one of the 5 TVs they had in stock at that price, and hoping that you got their early enough to get one.

I prefer to buy Black Friday deals online, sure, I paid $25 more for a similar TV, but I was able to stay at home where it was warm and dry, set the alarm for the apprpriate time, go to the website, purchase my item, and be back in bed 5 minutes later. The $25 savings simply is not worth the hassle.

Yeah, I’m with you here. If there’s a comparable deal for something I really want (and most of this Black Friday stuff is the bottom-of-the-line crap they’re just trying to get rid of anyways)…I’ll pay a few extra bucks in order to guarantee I won’t be arrested for choking some idiot to death.

One of the many reasons I don’t work retail. I always go out of town for Thanksgiving to see my extended family – the only time of the year I do – and when I did work retail, I always told my employers well in advance that I would not be working Black Friday. If they insisted that I was, I gave my two week notice. This usually caused them to back down and schedule me off.

I was fired for attending my Grandfather’s funeral, which I gave several days’ notice for. They didn’t bother to tell me, and when I showed up the following Monday said “Oh, just ignore that line through your name on the schedule.”

On the one hand, your employer IS paying you to work for them. On the other, you may be contributing more to them than they are to you.

Offering an ultimatum only really works when you know they can’t get along without you. And that’s a tough line to objectively draw.

I went to K-Mart yesterday, but we always do to check out their sale. They’ve been doing said sale for years upon years. Just they normally don’t publicize it as well as they did this year. It was definitely a lot busier this year than years past that we’ve gone.
It wasn’t packed though by any means, but the workers said that it was that morning (we went late afternoon).
Otherwise, I shopped online for what I was wanting.
I haven’t gone out today, and won’t for a bit, but I’m sure it has died down by now. I never go out for when it is the busiest though.

Hideous. Had to buy a couple of clothing items and an electric blanket for our son who’s home from college; our local mall wart resembled a hive full of angry, greedy bees. Found my items in five minutes–stood in a line being jostled by the bees for forty-five more minutes, all the time wondering why?

I did NOT shop on Thanksgiving Day, and I will Never shop on Thanksgiving Day. I think its disgraceful for stores to force employees to work on a national holiday, especially a family oriented, one like Thanksgiving Day. Just more evidence of the greedy, “more money, more money”, Scrooge-like mentality of big business owners. Screw the employees and their families … we can make an extra $1.25 so we’re making you all work.

I know it will never happen, but just one year on Black Friday, five minutes before all the stores open, I’d like to see every retail worker in the country walk out. Priceless,

I’m glad that someone feels this way. I had to work yesterday morning and bite my tongue every time someone said “Gosh, it sucks that you’re working on Thanksgiving.” I sorely wanted to look them in the eye and respond: “If it wasn’t for people like you I wouldn’t be.”

My mom works at a grocery store/mass merchandiser and she’s worked Thanksgiving in the past. She’s heard the same crap “Oh it’s too bad you have to be here!” while these lonely, no life morons pile clothes and junk up on her belt. She says most of the time it’s not gifts or food, it’s just clearance crap.

You = my hero. I want to help you with this. I want to call it “Find it your own damn self and let me eat my turkey!” Day. NO ONE needs to shop at all on Thanksgiving. I’d really love to see all the lonely, bored people go out and volunteer on Thanksgiving. Go help hungry families, feed the homeless, clean up your neighborhood. If you have time to shop, you have time to help.

AMEN! I wonder what it would take to organize such a walk-out within the next couple of years…

It drives me insane to see all the places that are open on Thanksgiving; both stores and restaurants. It was just a few years ago that nothing in my town was open on Thanksgiving. No grocery stores, no K-Mart, no Wal-Mart, no Best Buy, and no restaurants except, of course, Waffle House. It pisses me off that everything is open on Thanksgiving now, even stinkin’ McDonalds. Some poor employees were having to work to feed the approximately 2 people who were there at 5 pm when I passed by. Same thing with Pizza Hut. Parking lot was empty except for two vehicles, probably employees who were sitting inside wishing they were somewhere else.

My dad’s family went out to eat for their Thanksgiving dinner last night and I flat out refused to go. Every single one of them was capable of cooking 1 or 2 things to bring to dinner at our usual gathering place, but their lazy butts went out to a restaurant which was so crammed full that they had to wait an hour to be seated. I feel so sorry for the waitstaff and others that had to be there to serve my family and the others like them who were too lazy to bother cooking their own darn meal. People can go without eating out one day a year. I don’t think it’s going to hurt them.

I honestly never minded working Thanksgiving, or any other holiday, and few of my coworkers ever did either. Usually there were enough of us that whoever didn’t or couldn’t work didn’t have to and those of us who were working got time and a half.

None of my server friends tended to mind much either. Tips were usually good from guests in a generous/guilty mood.

I go out every year for Thanksgiving, for many reasons that make a lot of sense for my family. My servers have always been gracious. Sometimes I ask if they have any plans later. Many are doing a later dinner, others don’t have any family in town, others have simply said they prefer to work.

Here in New York City, there is a store called “P.C. Richard & Son” and every year they run an ad in the papers basically saying in so many words that it’s despicable that companies force their employees to work on holidays such as Thanksgiving. So, their stores are all closed.
However, they do recognize that some employees HAVE to work and they thank the “essential services” and our armed forces for doing so.
I agree. So, somewhat belatedly, thank you to the NYC NYPD, FDNY, EMTs, hospitals, and our armed services for not taking a day off.

Don’t forget the people in IT who work ungodly hours 365/7/24 so you can enjoy checking your email in front of your TV with your family, checkout your favorite website without interruption, and any number of other countless computer related activities.

Well, I’m ok with stores being open in the mornings. Especially grocery stores, since there’s always someone who realizes last minute they don’t have ingredient X. But in my area even Mc Donalds employees get half days.

With it just being my husband and I this year, it would have made more sense for us to go out to eat. And that’s what my Dad suggested. But I just didn’t have the heart to do that to anyone on Thanksgiving.

My mom used to be down with the Christmas day movie theatre thing. When we left the theatre after the last time, I told the kid waiting to clean up “I’m sorry that assholes like my family make you work on Christmas.” He said “Well, thank you for at least understanding how that works.” I don’t know if my mom overheard it or if I just bitched about it more the next year, but I know that was the last year we did it.

Worked at Mcdonalds and had people often *surprised* at the hours we’d stay open, but not often dismay. Had one lady completely adamant that it was terrible that we were open easter sunday. “Ma’am. You’re here, so we’re here. If people didn’t come, we’d close.” She shut up! It was my easter miracle.

FYI, not everyone celebrates Christmas. When I worked at a grocery store, I was able to trade for days I wanted off by working on the religious holiday (time and a half!) that the government demands that we celebrate. Since Thanksgiving is a national holiday, I object to making employees work – but for a religious holiday it should be voluntary, and not mandated by the government. I would prefer if Christians would have to take vacation time to worship their creator, instead of government sanctioned religion.

Yup. And my Jewish tuchas is keeping my Christmas Day Chinese and a Movie, thanks.

Seriously, I used to work in a 24 hour pharmacy. We were always open. I’d volunteer to work Christmas.

And in my current job, I would be thrilled to work Christmas, sadly, we’re closed. On Easter, we aren’t only closed, but we’re not paid for it either. So I either work 10 hour days the next week, or take my own vacation time. For a holiday I don’t celebrate.

I don’t celebrate christmas either. And I know there are plenty of places with Christmas sign-ups. Even the McDonalds’ that I worked at had a sign up for “if you want to work christmas eve, please let us know.” And we’d have maybe 3-4 signups, and the other employees of the day were people who didn’t sign up (and half of them had requested it off).
Admittedly Christmas may not be the best example — but it’s not a worthless example either. Hey, *that* glum-looking kid apparently didn’t want to be working Christmas, at least.

No, not everyone celebrates Christmas – but I worked with a room full of atheists who all clamored over one another in an attempt to secure Christmas Eve and Day off – so no, not everyone celebrates Christmas, but it seems that everyone wants it off. If religious people have to use their own vacation time, than the atheists who want Christmas off have to use their own as well.

Once again I agree on the Thanksgiving day rush. People really should boycott this. It used to be that no stores were open on Thanksgiving then Kmart started as the only one open here, soon after that EVERY store was open the whole day on Thanksgiving since they are not going to let one store take away that business from them. Even then Kmart was only open till 4pm on Thanksgiving which allowed the workers enough time to get home to eat dinner with the family. But now every store is open all day here. There really should be a law that says no store should be open on Thanksgiving at least past a certain time..

The problem is everyone is so greedy and they want it now and they can’t wait one day till the stores open again on Friday, lovely. The stores here don’t offer special deals on Thanksgiving with the exception of Kmart and a few others, its just regular business but the stores are more packed than a regular day. Could you have not bought whatever thing you needed to buy on Wednesday or at least wait till Friday?

As a retail employee, I’m so grateful my company does NOT ever open on Thanksgiving and almost never opens early the day after. I’ll also never work for a company that does these things. It’s absurd. I have a family I’d like to spend time with, and there are two guaranteed days that I get to do that. Anyone who wants to waste MY day by buying crap they can get on our website or by shopping ANY OTHER DAY can bite me. We have no specials, shop the day before, get the same deals. Hell, go online, get them cheaper. I’m getting my damn turkey day.

I’m not much better. I went to the movies yesterday, so I was forcing a bunch of probably-minimum-wage teenagers to work all day. Some of the four movies I saw only had a half dozen people in the theatre.

However, I drove by a Toys R Us (when I took a break from movies to eat at Denny’s, forcing more people to work on Thanksgiving), and was surprised to see a line forming. I didn’t know Toys R Us had anything worth forming a line for! I took a picture.

I drove past a best buy at 10:30 and there were already 6 tents and lots of people in blankets. Even A guy in a sleeping bag! I went to target at 3:00am and got the westinghouse TV, not to many people there and the stores are relatively close. What was even at best buy that was so great? I really did not see many decent ads. It is sad, but It’s actually pretty fun waiting in line. I also got a set of lefty clubs at sports authority, making it a complete win!

I’m shamefully guilty of going to the food store on Thanksgiving Day :( I had an unexpected dinner guest, and I realized I had no coffee accompaniments.

Then we had to run to Home Depot today to get more Duralogs, and I’m still trying to figure out how holidays transform human brain cells into marshmallows. It’s like everyone forgets how to even walk! “Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walkin’ ‘cross the floor…!!!”

I work in grocery retail, so I was working yesterday until close at 5. I really didn’t mind it though. Store was slow except for the catering department (people picking up orders) and beer section. Got $1 extra an hr (full timers get the day paid of course) and free lunch, and didn’t really do much “working”. Got off my shift and went to a relatives house ~10 min. away. I’m sure there are many who don’t mind working, and many who are grateful for an extra day of pay, even given the holiday. Now if I didn’t have an incentive, I would have requested off months ago. I work Christmas Eve as well…every year.

It’s ridiculous that stores such as Sears, Kmart, Wal*Mart, etc., are open on Thanksgiving. Yes, I know the arguments – “why shouldn’t I be able to shop on Thanksgiving if I want to?”; “some employees want to work for the extra pay”; and so on, but I find it hard to believe that the majority of employees really want to be at work that day, and for those who must shop, well, go find a 7-11 or something. It’s disgusting that so many people are willing to wait on a line for the chance to get something at what appears to be a great price instead of relaxing and enjoying the day. Especially since all you have to do is keep your eyes open during the rest of the Joyous Holiday Season(TM) and you’ll find sale prices just as good as Black Friday when the sales the retailers anticipate don’t materialize and they slash prices to get more bodies into the store.

Cause 7-11’s don’t have employees either? Come on, just because you celebrate a holiday in a certain way does not mean others have to as well. When you take a retail job, you know you could end up working a day like today, thats the nature of the business. For you to think it’s alright for 7-11 employees but not Wal-Marts shows you really do not understand the issue at all.

He didn;t actually say it was alright for 7-11 employees to work but not for other retail employees to do so. It does make somewhat more sense that you might expect a 7-11 employee to have to work than, say, a K-Mart employee, since many 7-11 stores are also gas stations, and like it or not, people will still need that service on Thanksgiving day.

It’s ridiculous that stores such as Sears, Kmart, Wal*Mart, etc., are open on Thanksgiving. Yes, I know the arguments – “why shouldn’t I be able to shop on Thanksgiving if I want to?”; “some employees want to work for the extra pay”; and so on, but I find it hard to believe that the majority of employees really want to be at work that day, and for those who must shop, well, go find a 7-11 or something. It’s disgusting that so many people are willing to wait on a line for the chance to get something at what appears to be a great price instead of relaxing and enjoying the day. Especially since all you have to do is keep your eyes open during the rest of the Joyous Holiday Season(TM) and you’ll find sale prices just as good as Black Friday when the sales the retailers anticipate don’t materialize and they slash prices to get more bodies into the store.

I think most sane people are just not that willing to get up at 5:00 a.m. to be trampled, jostled, fought with, et cetera, just to save a small percentage on an electronic gadget. If you do your homework, and it’s something that you REALLY want or need, then I’m sure you can find a comparable deal without the hassle inherent in the push and shove atmosphere of a discount retailer at the crack of dawn! Of course, there are always those people who ENJOY the fight.

I was not happy that I HAD to work. My other option was to find a new job in a crappy job area.
I got to work 7am-noon. Because I don’t have to do things like cook a turkey or help prepare food for several people.
Sure I’d love to be at work on a national holiday with no overtime or benefits.

I’m going to sound like a meanie, but I don’t see what the big deal is. If people truly felt that no one (aside from emergency services) should work on Thanksgiving, then people should boycott companies that open on Thanksgiving. We don’t need some law to force companies to close.

Besides, if you think about it, plenty of people have to work on Thanksgiving (I have an office job, so I don’t) – not just emergency personnel, but people at theme parks, gas station attendants, people who work at tv stations (news doesn’t just report itself), etc. I understand it stinks to have to work on a holiday (especially if an employee can’t find someone else to switch with) but not everyone celebrates holidays equally. For Thanksgiving, my family went to Knott’s Berry Farm. And then stopped by McDonalds on the way home. A friend of mine went to Claim Jumper with her family because her mom likes turkey but they don’t want to cook it.

I would imagine that in this economy, any way to generate more revenue would be a good thing (though I guess the average retail worker doesn’t get bonuses if the company is doing well).

I found it refreshingly easy this year. I wanted a TV Sam’s Club had advertised (no, not the Vizio POS, a Hitachi whiich had very good feedback pretty much across the board online…and was a whole $10 more than the Vizio equivilent’s price).

I got there about 4:45. There were about a hundred people there, total. No fuss at ALL to park. Hopped in line. They came down the line, handed out pull tickets if appropriate to the items you were there for. They let folks in 20 at a time to smooth the flow, no muss, no fuss. There were plenty of the TV I wanted (and the others too), and they even had some already on flatbed carts so you could just take the cart and roll it up front. I was backing out of my space at 5:20.

I used to work full time retail. If I worked Thanksgiving and took the next day off, I got paid essentially 2.5 times my pay for one day. So I could take off Thanksgiving and work the next day and get paid $60 or work Thanksgiving and take off the next day and get paid $150.

Yeah, I’d rather do that than watch fucking football. I did it for every holiday I could.

If you hate the idea of retailers being open on Thanksgiving, don’t just bitch about it, make sure the retailer knows WHY you’re not buying from them at ALL this year. Oh, you are? Right… You like the deals more than your “principles”, just like I liked the money more than turkey and football.

This is the first year I’ve actually been THANKFUL I work in a mall. Yeah, we opened at 5am on Black Friday, but I had my entire Thanksgiving to myself.

Corporate decision-makers are assholes. There once were only three days that we retail managers knew we had off: Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter. We’re slowly losing Thanksgiving and, to make matters worse, lots of us have to essentially give up our Thanksgiving in its entirety to be to work at midnight, 3am, or whatever stupid time those asshats say we need to be there. But they don’t care, because THEY get Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the whole damn weekend off.

I was up at 3 AM, and I was not lucky enough for the 299 Panasonic deal, it disappeared in less than a second. the point of blackfriday is to attract consumer to the site, but buy.com did a poor job of advertising the deal. the tv sold out in a few seconds, and email sent out to buy.com customers which I get at 7 AM listed the TV, but it was sold out. it was poor marketing done by Buy.com, I guess that’s why amazon didn’t care about price matching it.

I think Walmart did a good job handling blackfriday, the emerson TV was on their website for over 30 minutes, and it was a very fair deal. I didn’t get it since I’m not a fan of emerson, but that’s how online blackfriday deals should be. The deal should last for at least 5 minutes, and be well advertised.

I had the same problem with Frys, their online LG 32 inch. I ordered it, and I was one of my many that got a cancellation email. I think online merchants have to re-evaluate their black friday promotions.

The deals at Bestbuy weren’t super hot this year, but they were good deals. Best Buy did a good job of keeping their items in stock. I noticed they choose not to lower their prices from last year, but to increase inventory. The Sony 399 laptop stayed 399, but the blu-ray combo was 499, and it was available online.

I was up at 3 AM, and I was not lucky enough for the 299 Panasonic deal, it disappeared in less than a second. the point of blackfriday is to attract consumer to the site, but buy.com did a poor job of advertising the deal. the tv sold out in a few seconds, and email sent out to buy.com customers which I get at 7 AM listed the TV, but it was sold out. it was poor marketing done by Buy.com, I guess that’s why amazon didn’t care about price matching it.

I think Walmart did a good job handling blackfriday, the emerson TV was on their website for over 30 minutes, and it was a very fair deal. I didn’t get it since I’m not a fan of emerson, but that’s how online blackfriday deals should be. The deal should last for at least 5 minutes, and be well advertised.

I had the same problem with Frys, their online LG 32 inch. I ordered it, and I was one of my many that got a cancellation email. I think online merchants have to re-evaluate their black friday promotions.

The deals at Bestbuy weren’t super hot this year, but they were good deals. Best Buy did a good job of keeping their items in stock. I noticed they choose not to lower their prices from last year, but to increase inventory. The Sony 399 laptop stayed 399, but the blu-ray combo was 499, and it was available online.

Yup. Thanksgiving Day is also now the busiest online shopping day too. The notion that there is even a such thing as “cyber Monday” has never been true. The term was coined by a retailers association, who has also been carefully editing the wiki page for it. Snopes says it best.